Although natural caloric sweetener compositions such as sucrose, fructose, and glucose taste good to most consumers, they are caloric. Therefore, alternative non-caloric or low-caloric sweeteners have been used widely as sugar or sucrose substitutes. Many non-caloric or low-caloric sweeteners, however, are prohibitively expensive. Thus, it may be desirable to identify compounds capable of enhancing or increasing the perception of sweetness of such sweeteners. By combining such compounds with sweeteners, the amount of sweetener needed to obtain a desired degree of sweetness may be reduced significantly, thereby reducing the calories imparted by natural caloric sweeteners or reducing the amounts of low-caloric or non-caloric natural or synthetic high-potency sweeteners.
It is well known to those skilled in the art of food/beverage formulation, however, that changing the sweetener in a composition requires re-balancing of the flavor and other taste components (e.g., acidulants). For example, the sweetness enhanced sweet tastes of natural caloric sweeteners and alternative non-caloric or low-caloric sweeteners may be slower in onset and longer in duration than the sweet taste produced by sugar and thus change the taste balance of a food composition. In addition, sweetness enhanced sweet tastes of natural caloric sweeteners and alternative non-caloric or low-caloric sweeteners may exhibit (i) lower maximal response than sugar, (ii) off tastes including bitter, metallic, cooling, astringent, licorice-like taste, etc., and/or (iii) sweetness which diminishes on iterative tasting. If the taste profile of sweetness enhanced sweetener compositions could be modified to impart specific desired taste characteristics to be more sugar-like, the type and variety of compositions that may be prepared with that sweetness enhanced sweetener may be expanded significantly. Accordingly, it may be desirable to selectively modify the taste characteristics of sweetness enhanced sweetener compositions.